Grace, and its correlative faith, are the characteristics of the present economy. But Matt. 13 gives the history. It began in sovereign grace; but because it was grace man despised it, and it ends in judgment. Faith was the substitute for law, and man has become firmer in unbelief than before, and increased his condemnation. True, Satan had first to bring within the sphere of the kingdom his own material, and unwatchful man soon gave the opportunity. Men slept and the devil sowed tares, which give character to the whole field, and the harvest as a whole is a harvest of tares. Thus judgment is the public end of the field where the good seed was sown. Terrible is the perversion of the good given, when He who in grace gave is forced to judge the place that received it. The authority of the word has been used to shelter the birds of the air, and the truth of the word leavened with corruption.
Satan was foiled in his attempt to turn the King aside from His divine path, but he succeeded with the servants; and so the highest and best gift of God has been the occasion for the development of the worst evil. For man under the responsibilities which flow from this dispensation of grace has done worse than during that of law. The wickedness of Israel caused the heathen to blaspheme the name of Jehovah. But now, within the sphere of Christian profession, a worse thing is found. The Jew always professed reverence for the law, though he practically disobeyed. What do we see now in so-called Christian lands? The word of God is esteemed by some no other than a myth, classed with the legends of paganism. By others the Lord is spoken of as a good, though mistaken man, esteemed as a hero who really wished to raise man morally, but who allowed His disciples to believe and propagate a lie to accomplish the end He had in view; as an enthusiast who suffered death rather than withdraw His pretensions. And the literature of the present day teems with writings containing this horrible doctrine, a blasphemy as absurd as horrible. Nor is this confined to such writers—as are professed infidels; for the truth of the word is undermined, if not openly denied, by those who take the place of being theological teachers. All such books, by traitorous teachers, are far more pernicious and dangerous than the vulgar infidelity of the last century. A distinguishing feature of the present day is that every shade of infidel thought has its representative and teacher. Atheism is made the groundwork of science and taught in its halls, and, being exalted to the rank of science, is applied as a corrector of God's Book; it stops not at material things, but enters boldly the moral domain, and dares to judge what God must be, and what He must not be; decides how much—rather how little—of the creation belongs to God; and how much to “evolution.” This is not confined to the “scientific” few, it is popularized; and the masses, inclined by nature to say “no God,” readily receive the dicta of Atheism and Materialism. God bears with all this, for the present day is salvation, not judgment, and His long-suffering is the proof. Human wickedness has made the patience of God a means of deeper condemnation. If “he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith He was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:28, 2928He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:28‑29).)
The kingdom of heaven is the rule of Christ over this world. But how does Christ reign when He is rejected? The principles of the kingdom were in grace made known to man, and after he had cast out the King, he used His name and the inherent subjugating authority belonging to it, to establish a system for Himself, where the name of the King is freely used, but His rights practically ignored; where, instead of righteousness reigning, all the worst corruption of nature is dominant, the name of Christ on the lips, the truth of Christ in its life-giving power mostly unknown. Hence the present time discloses the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom as the scene of Christ's power and glory was no secret; it was abundantly and clearly foretold by the prophets. Godly Jews were waiting for it, rejoicing in the hope of it. Further, it was predicted, though perhaps imperfectly apprehended, that the coming King should be despised and rejected, wounded in the house of His friends, valued at thirty pieces of silver—price of a slave. But it was not revealed that the King should be more than eighteen centuries absent, and that during His absence men should arrogate to themselves His authority, and establish human power by its use; still less, that the Jews' rejection of their King should be, in the wisdom of God, the occasion for the calling out of a people for a heavenly portion, who, while here passing through a path of predestined suffering, would be of all men most miserable if in this life only they had hope in Christ (1 Cor. 15:1919If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (1 Corinthians 15:19)). It is these two things we see now—the absence of the Lord from the scene of His future glory, and the hidden working by which He secures to Himself a people who, spite of suffering, nay, using it rather as a means, are destined for a higher than kingdom glory (2 Cor. 4:1717For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; (2 Corinthians 4:17)). These are some of the secrets—the hitherto unrevealed things of the kingdom of heaven.
The Lord Jesus in Matt. 13 reveals. All except the first parable are the mysteries—secrets—of the kingdom. The tare-field gives the fact that, where good seed was sown the devil sowed tares, that both grow to the end, and then comes judgment. The aspect or form of the evil, and its moral character, are given in the tree and the leaven. The first similitude is history given in symbol, but perfect and complete in its brevity as divine wisdom alone could give it. Satan no sooner saw a new sphere of blessing opened for lost man than he hastened to bring in ruin. Just as he did when creation blessing and happiness were put into man's hand, so now he seeks to turn away redemption blessings from man. He did spoil creation (yet only for a time), but redemption blessing rests upon a foundation which not all his power can touch. The floods of evil, the mighty billows of sin, may rage and swell far more under a dispensation of grace than when law threatened from Sinai; the cunning and power of Satan may have now a wider and more open field for display; but all this only proves how firm and impregnable is the Rock against which the mightiest waves of Satanic and human evil dash in vain. It is thus that the Lord reigns now, controlling the evil of Satan and of man by a secret power, which faith alone can recognize. Other secrets are brought to light by the tree and the leaven which show the tare evil in its double form—worldly power and doctrinal corruption.
Prophecy had announced the days when the God of heaven should set up a kingdom which is to subdue all other kingdoms and fill the whole earth, but it was never foretold that men would set up a power for their own glory, and say it was the kingdom that God had announced. It is also said that righteousness will characterize the kingdom, but it was a secret that previous to its establishment an unrighteous power would prevail, giving harborage to the emissaries of Satan as the branches of a great tree to the birds of the air; that such a scene of evil through perversion of the truth would be presented within the sphere called Christendom, that creedism would permeate the mass as leaven in three measures of meal. External grandeur, and internal corruption! Truly, mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
Judgment is the only fitting termination. The Lord of the field is compelled to send the executors of His wrath upon the guilty and corrupt world, and the angels, like reapers in the harvest field, bind the tares in bundles for the fire. The angels “shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
The field was indeed overrun with tares, but good seed is yet found. They belong to the company of the righteous that shine in the Father's kingdom; and though now despised, and to the tare-world for the most part unknown—hid in a field—are to the Lord a treasure, and as such give a likeness of the kingdom of heaven. Both the “treasure” and the “pearl” refer to the good seed which the Lord sowed in the field. To the eye of man nothing was discernible but tares. His eye saw the treasure, and for its sake He bought the whole field. Thus the treasure hid in the field becomes an essential and prominent feature in the mysteries of the kingdom. Indeed, had there been no hid treasure, there would have been no mysteries. So also the pear; of great price is a likeness of the kingdom, or rather, not the pearl itself, but the merchant seeking, and having found one of great price, straightway parts with all he has and buys it, In the one, it is the treasure to which the kingdom is likened, in the other it is the merchant seeking. There is the joy of the finder, then the desire and energy of the merchant who is seeking for something not yet possessed. The prominent thought in the first is the treasure, not the man; in the second, not the pearl, but the seeking merchant. Both these parables are features of the present time, and of God's ways now. They are indeed “secrets” of the kingdom of heaven.
The prophet Malachi speaks of those who will be counted among the jewels of Jehovah, but not of saints so precious that a whole world would be bought to possess them. Much less was it known that divine power and grace would combine in love to form a Church welded together by the uniting energy of the Holy Spirit into one body, and be as one priceless pearl. The activities of divine love are the marks of this present age, not merely saving lost souls, but bestowing the highest blessings. For if the Merchant is seeking, that which He buys becomes a pearl in His hand. This is the moral process now going on.
How different, we may observe, from law process is the process of grace; yet that of grace and faith necessitated the law. But now the Triune God is engaged in the delight of His heart, in saving the lost. “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.” The Son, too, is seeking, the Shepherd who is gone into the wilderness to bring back the lost—the good Shepherd who gave His own life for His sheep; the Holy Spirit, also, who is the active agent in bringing home the truth and power of God's Salvation to the hearts of those whom it is God's purpose to save, and making them worshippers according to the Father's will. Is He not like the woman searching for the lost silver? He is seeking through the great house of profession for real worshippers, whose worship of the Father is in keeping with the character of the blessings given.
The great tree and the leaven are the development of that evil thing—the tares—brought in by the devil; they mark the progress and the universal extent of the evil. From an outside standpoint such is the aspect of the kingdom now. But however sad and real this view, it is not the reality essential to the fact that such things exist as are here called the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The essential reality is God carrying out now the purpose of His sovereign grace, a purpose present to the heart of God before the worlds were made; a moral process going on with man upon a working platform of faith, which begins with the first conviction of sin, then becomes the moral means of life, of walk, of victory, and never passes away till it is swallowed up in sight. The merchant seeking, and the man rejoicing over the hid treasure, this going on side by side with the growing evil of the devil's tares, make the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. It is the worst of evils subsisting side by side with grace in its most magnificent form; nay, which would not be so bad, but that grace is so good.
The not evidently points to the closing scenes of this dispensation; not here the progress and judgment of evil, but the distinction between the “good” and the “bad,” their separation more visible. The net is undoubtedly a symbol of the preaching of the Gospel; it has been cast into the sea, it has gathered of every kind. All enclosed are those “who profess and call themselves Christians,” who by their profession have been taken out of the sea of heathenism, of non-profession and nature's indifference, gathered in by the preached word which by the Lord's command has been carried over the world. At the time of accomplishment the net is drawn to the shore. There is a difference between gathering fishes and sorting them. The end approaches for that activity indicated by the net being in the sea; or while God still converts souls, another action gives character at the close to the kingdom of heaven. Not that the message of mercy is withdrawn, for it will no doubt continue to the end. There are even now those who go about from place to place, at least preaching salvation through Christ, who are not represented by the fishermen in the parable. And though there may be mixed up with them a great deal with which no intelligent Christian would identify himself, extravagancies which excite the contempt of the world, and alas here and there the corruption of nature; yet we see God, in the sovereignty of grace, using even such abnormal means to bring the name of Jesus the Savior home to the heart and conscience of the lost and degraded, which perhaps could be reached in no other way; that is, going into the very dens of infamy and bringing out brands from the burning. Is not the use of such irregular instrumentality as now meets our eye and ear a rebuke to those who boast a better knowledge of the truth?
But when the net is drawn to the shore, the gathering in from the sea is not the work which occupies the fishermen. The putting the good into vessels is the closing act of the fishermen, who are endowed by the Holy Spirit to discern between the good and the bad. Not that this wisdom had not been bestowed before, for all through, from the beginning, the receiving of souls into the Church is putting the good into vessels; but the energy of the Holy Spirit in the fishermen makes the care for the “good” characteristic of the close. Such is the closing testimony, the special work of this day. Those who travel about simply proclaiming the name of Jesus, and leaving those who may have been converted to g, just where they will, may perhaps be doing only what they have power for; but they are not the fishermen who give character to the kingdom of heaven at the close. The Lord Jesus passes abruptly to the judgment upon the evil, and says nothing as to the ultimate destination of the good fishes. In His explanation to the disciple (ver. 42, 43) the curtain is lifted, the righteous shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, the wicked are cast into the furnace of fire. But this is no part of the likeness of the kingdom of heaven which has its scene here, not in heaven nor in hell. There are two separations, not by the same agency, nor for the same object. The one is caring for the good, simply rejecting the bad; but there, as a feature of the kingdom, it ends. And the Lord, in ver. 49, turns to the separation spoken of in ver. 41. “So shall it be at the end of the world,” that is, the angels will seize the bundles of tares and cast them into the fire. The judgment and final doom of the wicked are given, the result of their disobedience to the gospel; and it is fittingly given here as showing that when the kingdom is established in power, they have no part in it. But the catching up of the saints, the Lord Himself coming for them, is no part of the mysteries of the kingdom; it is a church secret which Paul was privileged to make known; nor was it revealed till after the Lord had taken His place at the right hand of God, and the church was formed by the presence of the Holy Ghost. What is given in these two parables is that the Lord has hidden His treasure in the field; having found one, He hides it, and then at all cost buys the field to secure the treasure. This treasure is the good seed of ver. 24; and when spoken of as a “pearl of great price,” it is not its future setting in gold, not the glory which the “Merchant” destined for it, but as the object of His desire and His giving up all else to possess it. This is true of the church; but it is here a similitude of the kingdom, because it is a characteristic of this present time from the Pentecost to the Rapture. While the “Merchant” is seeking, judgment is delayed, and God patiently endures with the mystery of iniquity, and with the despising of the Son. When the Father's work of seeking spiritual worshippers is over, when His church like good wheat is garnered above, then will the Lord Jesus be revealed in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon them that know not God, and on those that obey not the gospel.
Neither caring for the good fish, nor binding the tares, is a momentary act. Both may soon be more apparent, but are going on now. At no previous period of church history since the days of the apostles has there been such insistence on the truth of the believer's standing in Christ, on the one Body, and on the evil of sectarianism. For how long a time men thought more of their own denominational position than of feeding the flock of God! how many have been, and how many now are, known by the name of a man!—an evil that broke out in the church at Corinth, but which has not disappeared by the apostle's rebuke. The dishonor this is to Christ is felt now; and gathering to His name is owned, at least by some, to be the only true ground where Christians can meet. Prayer and thanksgiving may be offered to God where this true ground is unknown, but it is only there, and nowhere else, that worship, spiritual worship such as the Father seeks, can be offered up. And more than this, there can be no true “waiting for the Son from heaven” if the saint is not there. The doctrine may be received—though even then not its fullness—but the true heart—waiting can scarce be where human system takes the place of the ground of God's church. Where this hope really exists, the saint purifies himself “even as He is pure.” And so it was that when the truth of being gathered to the name of Christ as the only ground of the church was revived, the waiting for the Son from heaven came in crush power. The long neglected hope of the Lord coming to take His own, and lead them into His rest and joy away from a doomed world, again cheered the heart, and gave strength against the evil of the world. It is midnight, and the cry “Behold the Bridegroom! Go forth” has awakened the sleepers. This cry—mere theory with some, but through grace a practical reality with others—has gone through the world. To bring believers on the true ground of the church, calling them to the true attitude of waiting for the Son from heaven, answers to the fishermen putting the good fish into vessels.
While the energy of the Holy Spirit is seen in thus reviving forgotten truth, at the same time the tares are being prepared for their binding. Men are combining under different leaders, and associations with various aims and characters are increasing. There are societies religious, political, infidel, for the furtherance of almost every conceivable object. And it may be alas! that in some are to be found true Christians, children of God mixed up with ungodly men for the promotion of objects other than of God. The power of grace will doubtless bring out all that are His, and bind them together in the bundle of life (1 Sam. 25:2929Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. (1 Samuel 25:29)), separating them from all evil; but then in all others will be manifested a more determined opposition against God and His truth, and all that He has established. Even human authority, as He ordained, will be set aside. This will be the common aspect of every tare-bundle, by whatever name now known. Nihilism, socialism, rationalism, and vulgar infidelity indicate the various forms and character the tares will assume—combinations against constituted government, and denial of the Bible as the revealed word of God. The present latitudinarianism (miscalled “liberality”) may change into persecution before the Lord comes, but it will make the separation between the good and the bad more distinct and visible.
Both Mark and Luke speak of the kingdom of God, where Matthew uses the phrase “the kingdom of the heavens;” but the two phrases are not interchangeable, even where the same parables are given in illustration. Matthew is dispensational, and under the expression “kingdom of heaven” gives the universal declension in Christendom. At Pentecost multitudes were converted, and the good news spread rapidly over the known world; the good seed seemed to be bearing its hundred-fold. Now, in our own day, can we see thirty-fold? In Mark the present is looked at from the point of testimony; hence he speaks of the kingdom of God, the tested condition of those who are within the sphere of the kingdom of heaven. Mark is individual, and lays emphasis upon responsibility. Nor are we left to our own inferences as to the qualities that mark the kingdom of God, which in its highest aspect is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom. 14:1717For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Romans 14:17)). And even where these highest qualities are not found, inasmuch as service, and consequently responsibility, are the points in this Gospel, those who fail entirely as well as those who by grace are maintained in service, are a likeness of the kingdom of God.
In Mark 1 the Lord Jesus said the kingdom of God was nigh; still it was moral, not dispensational. The moral perfections of the kingdom of God were about to be displayed in Him. This was His first word, the beginning of His public ministry. The kingdom of God was nigh to the people, very nigh, for He was there and entering upon the path where the power of God's kingdom would be brought before their eyes. To us, with a deeper knowledge than was possible for those who then heard Him, the kingdom of God was nigh in view of His death and resurrection; then it took a new and higher aspect—looking at man—in accordance with the heavenly character and portion of those who belong to it, those who are born again. Later on in His ministry the Lord Jesus said the kingdom of God was come, and this in Matthew (12:28), where the dispensation of the kingdom of heaven is the theme. For in casting out demons He displayed the power which belongs to God alone. The Lord never said the kingdom of heaven was come, for it could not till He ascended to the throne above. But the kingdom of God in power of blessing, healing the body, freeing the soul from Satanic possession, was there present in the person of the Lord Jesus. Again in Matthew the Lord said, “Seek first the kingdom of God.” It is an object of attainment the “how attained” is another question). This the kingdom of heaven is not, nor could be any more than the giving of the law. That to which the soul may attain belongs to a moral domain; and this should be ever borne in mind when the Spirit speaks of the kingdom of God.
The Sower is given in three Gospels; four casts of the seed, of which three are the same in result, as recorded by each Evangelist; but there is a marked difference in the result of the fourth. And each is in harmony with the Spirit's teaching in each Gospel. In Matthew the return from the good ground is some a hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold. In Mark, the order is reversed, some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, some a hundred-fold. Is this difference of order a mere accident? Nay, it is designed, and there is a divine purpose in it. In both there is the diversity of fruit-bearing, which, doubtless, is to be seen among Christians at all times; but the order of the words in Matthew points to the declension of the corporate body of profession, yea, even in the fruit-bearing of the good seed. Not through defect in the good seed, which is the Word, but through some bad quality in the good ground. In the parable of the tare-field, the good seed is not the Word, but the children of the kingdom; the same as the “good ground” in the Sower, only viewed in a different light.